Pay the Devil - Jack Higgins [49]
They mounted the stairs, Joanna following, and went into his bedroom. As Joshua peeled the coat from his master’s tired body, Clay examined his face in the mirror, but suddenly a mist seemed to form there and then his vision blurred and he fell across the bed.
Joanna cried out in alarm, “Oh, God, he’s hurt,” and leaned anxiously across him.
Joshua lifted his master’s legs up onto the bed and pulled off his boots. “I’ve seen him do this before, Miss Hamilton. Keel over after a period of intense stress. The colonel’s like a thorough-bred—kind of highly strung.”
“As if I need to be told that,” she said, and Clay smiled and allowed the darkness to flow over him.
He awakened to night and moonlight streaming in through the window with ghostly fingers. For a little while, he lay there, something nagging away at the back of his mind, and then he remembered and threw back the bedclothes.
The lamp stood on the dresser and he found a match and lit it. There was a dull ache somewhere behind his eyes, his ribs were sore and there was no feeling at all in his left cheek, the one Burke had split to the bone. He touched it gingerly with a finger and winced. There was a purple patch in the pit of his stomach, blue bruises in various other places and a graze on his chin.
As he examined them, they all began to hurt and he grinned and started to dress. The immediate problem was to warn the Rogans of the intended ambush, but how? If he simply rode across to Hidden Valley and told them in person or sent Joshua with a message, it would be taken as a declaration of allegiance—an open one at that. No, it would never do. He stamped on the floor hard with his booted foot and pulled his shirt over his head.
After a moment, the door opened and Joshua entered. He said patiently, “Now Colonel, you should be in bed.”
“Has Miss Hamilton gone? What time is it?”
Joshua consulted his watch. “A little after nine.”
“Then I haven’t got much time. I know this will distress you, Joshua, but I’m afraid Captain Swing must ride again.”
He opened the trunk and took out his cavalry greatcoat and explained the situation hurriedly as he dressed. “And you think one of the Rogan boys will still be on guard where you saw the other one?” Joshua asked, when he had finished.
Clay knotted the scarf about his neck and pulled the brim of the hat down over his eyes. “I certainly hope so. If not, I’ll have to think of something else.”
They went downstairs and saddled Pegeen between them, and a moment later, he moved out of the yard into the dark shadows of the trees.
The moors were quiet and deserted, the only sound the lonely sighing of the wind through the heather, and clouds obscured the moon. When he was near to Hidden Valley, he turned off the track and approached from another direction, Pegeen’s hooves quiet on the damp turf.
He left her tethered to a bush in a small valley by a runnel of water and climbed up its side, entering the clump of trees in which Dennis Rogan had been hiding. He went forward cautiously and after a moment heard a slight cough, and the wind carried with it the rich animal smell of a horse.
Clay paused behind a beech tree and drew his Colt. As he did so, clouds moved and a shaft of moonlight pierced the trees and fell upon the face of Marteen Rogan, who was sitting on a fallen log, a horse tethered beside him.
The horse raised its head and whinnied a warning. Clay stepped forward, Colt raised threateningly as Marteen turned. The boy’s jaw went slack. “Jesus help us, it’s Captain Swing,” he said in a whisper.
“Right first time, Marteen,” Clay said lightly, in an Irish accent. “Now turn your back like a good lad and no harm will come to you.”
The boy did as he was told and raised his hands. “God save us, Captain, but aren’t we on the same side?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Clay told him. “But I’ve no time for idle chatter. Your brother Kevin and his friends have a rendezvous in Drumore Woods, I understand. Tell him Sir George Hamilton and his men intend to be there. Tell him also to be careful how he opens